Amazing. Priceless. Interesting. Weird. Star-struck.
All of these are adjectives used by former Virginia athletes to describe their experience at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Whether it was chilling with the likes of Kobe Bryant, cheering on athletes in other events or visiting the Great Wall, the experience of being an Olympian is one that these former Cavaliers will treasure for the rest of their lives.
“Being in the [Olympic] Village this week’s interesting,” said 2001 University graduate Wyatt Allen, who won the bronze with the U.S. men’s eight crew team in Beijing and gold in Athens in 2004. “For me, that’s the coolest part ... just walking through the village and seeing athletes from all over the world, nodding heads with a South African track and field athlete that you pass on the walkway.”
For Lindsay Shoop, however, there was nothing like winning gold. A 2003 U.Va. graduate, Shoop’s women’s eight crew team beat the Netherlands in the gold medal race by nearly 2 seconds to take home the gold medal. Shoop joins 1999 Virginia graduate and U.S. women’s soccer player Angela Hucles and 1992 Virginia graduate and U.S. women’s basketball assistant coach Dawn Staley as the third ex-Cavalier to win gold in Beijing.
“You feel like you are going to jump out of your skin, but in reality you are hunched over in excruciating pain.” Shoop said. “I actually remember thinking to myself, ‘You just won the Olympics. You can do it this time. Get it together and go nuts.’ After I had caught just enough of my breath, I just started yelling and hugging my teammates around me.”
Of course even beyond the medals, just being included at the Olympics is enough to humble just about anyone.
“This is just amazing to walk around and be around these athletes,” Allen said. “I was in the arcade last night, and saw Pau Gasol, the Spanish basketball player from the Lakers. It’s just crazy to be around these people.”
Though Allen said he had “no Kobe sightings” because the basketball players were separated from the rest of the athletes, the biggest celebrities in Beijing were not missed by everyone.
“I was in the dining hall, and you get to see people like Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming and the Williams sisters, all sitting in the same dining hall with you,” said 2003 University alumna Ruby Rojas, a member of the Venezuelan softball team. “I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, can I take a picture with you?’”
For Shoop, her favorite encounter with a fellow competitor was not with an athlete of international fame, but rather with the silver-medal winning U.S. women’s volleyball team one morning at breakfast. Nevertheless, her experience may have been the most inspiring.
A teammate of Shoop’s “opened the conversation and in the course of it, [the volleyball team] found out that we had won [the gold medal],” Shoop said. “They got so excited about our accomplishment and wanted to see the medal. One of the girls put it on and it gave her goose bumps ... Later that week, I bumped into one of the girls and she told us that they had a pump-up talk before a critical game. It was about talking to us at breakfast and holding our medal ... Olympic athletes inspire even each other. It gives me chills to think about that.”
Through these thrilling two weeks, the athletes said they did not forget their Virginia roots. Several athletes noted that they stayed in touch with former teammates and coaches before and during the Olympic Games; Croatian swimmer and 2007 University alumna Vanja Rogulj said he got to meet Erika Stewart, a fellow swimmer and freshman at U.Va. this year who represented Colombia in Beijing.
“There are probably 10 or 15 guys from my years at U.Va. that I periodically get e-mails from,” Allen said. “Checking in, see[ing] how it’s going or saying congratulations.”
And, Shoop noted one particular moment that was particularly reminiscent of her days as at Virginia.
It is awesome to chant ‘U-S-A,’” Shoop said. “It is kind of funny though. It always reminds me of chanting “U-V-A,” and I have almost slipped a time or two.”
Overall, the consensus among the former Cavaliers was that the experience of being an Olympian could not be adequately put into words. Shoop, however, gave it a shot.
“I think that being a true Olympian is one whose life is changed, such that he or she begins to realize the power of the most positive aspects of who they already are,” Shoop said. “Those aspects become infinitely magnified.”
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